Acts 18King James Version
Corinth. Paul stays a year and a half. He works as a tentmaker with Aquila and Priscilla. The Lord speaks to him in a vision: be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee. He returns to Antioch by way of Ephesus. Apollos, an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures, is taught the way of God more perfectly by Aquila and Priscilla.
In Corinth, Paul meets Aquila and Priscilla, expelled from Rome, and works with them as tentmakers. He argues in the synagogue weekly; when opposed, he turns to the Gentiles. A vision promises him safety in the city. He stays eighteen months. A Jewish complaint before the proconsul Gallio fails when Gallio refuses jurisdiction over internal religious disputes. Paul sails for Syria, stops at Ephesus, and leaves Aquila and Priscilla there. He visits Jerusalem, Antioch, and then begins his third journey. Apollos arrives in Ephesus, eloquent but knowing only John's baptism; Priscilla and Aquila take him aside and explain the way more accurately.
Corinth, one of the most morally complex cities in the empire, becomes a place of long-term planting, and a night vision overrides the fear that makes missionaries want to leave.
9: "Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace." God addresses not the external opposition but the internal fear that could stop the work.
Corinth had been destroyed by Rome in 146 BC and rebuilt by Julius Caesar in 44 BC as a Roman colony. By Paul's day it was a major commercial hub with two harbors and a reputation for sexual permissiveness: the phrase to Corinthianize was Greek slang for immorality. Aquila and Priscilla had been expelled from Rome under Claudius's edict, which Suetonius says was due to Jewish unrest over a figure named Chrestus, possibly referring to disputes over Jesus.
Aquila and Priscilla, Paul's colleagues and hosts; Crispus, the synagogue ruler who believes; Gallio, the proconsul who refuses jurisdiction; Apollos, the eloquent Alexandrian teacher.
The Gallio inscription found at Delphi dates the proconsulship of Gallio to 51-52 AD, making this one of the most precisely dated events in Acts and a key anchor for Pauline chronology. Eighteen months in Corinth is the longest stay recorded in Acts. Priscilla and Aquila appear as a ministry couple rather than a hierarchy, and their private instruction of Apollos is the closest thing in Acts to theological mentoring.
For when the fear is louder than the calling and you need a word that directly addresses the fear. The vision does not say the opposition will stop. It says: do not be afraid, keep talking.
1After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth;
2And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them.
3And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers.
4And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.
5And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.
6And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.
7And he departed thence, and entered into a certain man's house, named Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.
8And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.
9Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace:
10For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city.
11And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
12And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat,
13Saying, This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law.
14And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you:
15But if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters.
16And he drave them from the judgment seat.
17Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of those things.
18And Paul after this tarried there yet a good while, and then took his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had a vow.
19And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: but he himself entered into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews.
20When they desired him to tarry longer time with them, he consented not;
21But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you, if God will. And he sailed from Ephesus.
22And when he had landed at Caesarea, and gone up, and saluted the church, he went down to Antioch.
23And after he had spent some time there, he departed, and went over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples.
24And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus.
25This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.
26And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.
27And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace:
28For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.